24 



SPRING FLOAVEKS FOE WINDOWS, GREENHOUSES, 

 AND CHOICE FLOWER BEDS. 



|T is satisfactory to notice what a growing taste there is in London for 

 exterior -window-gardening ; in fact, no one can pass through the most 

 fashionahle districts of the great metropolis, with his eyes alive to note 

 wliat of horticultural interest meets tlie line of sight, without being 

 struck with the rapidly-developing taste for ornamental window-boxes 

 of tlie newest and choicest designs. To keep these gay and attractive is a very easy 

 matter during the summer months, but to attain tliis much-desired result during 

 the winter and spring months is not so easy, if a judgment be drawn from what is 

 easily to be observed. A dreary-looking and stunted Aucuba or two, or a Box 

 plant in a like flourishing condition, unable to draw any subsistence from the dry 

 and ofttimes starved soil about their roots, literally to them 



" a wretched land, 



That yields them no supplies." 



for frequently water is supposed not to be needed during the winter and early spring 

 months, albeit a I'apid evaporation is constantly taking place. 



Sometimes a result not much more valuable is attained by filling the boxes early 

 in March, when nipping and husky east winds prevail, with spring-flowering bulbs 

 from the forcing house. The consequence can easily be surmised — blighted plants, 

 attenuated flowers, and a thorough disappointment. In one fashionable square I 

 saw, in Marcli of the present year, the tenants of three or four boxes in just such a 

 pitiable plight ; rude winds have no sympathy with or mercy for weakly constitu- 

 tions in the department of the horticulturist. 



Window boxes can be made very gay indeed in the early part of the year, pro- 

 vided the bulbs are planted in the boxes at the outset, and so become inured to all the 

 vicissitudes of the uncertain early spring-time. Hyacinths, Kaicissi, Tulips, Crocuses, 

 Snowdrops, Scillas, and Aconites can be grouped together, and a long succession of 

 blojm secured. I have always found pieces of turf, used to the depth of three 

 inches, a capital drainage for window boxes; and on these should be placed a soil 

 well enriched with rotted manure, and rendered friable by the use of sand. Com- 

 mon road-sand is easily got, and " the plants delight in it," to borrov/ a stock phrase 

 from the fat catalogues. 



Plenty of bulbs should be used ; they require but little root-room, and will 

 make growth, however thickly they may be quartered together. Hyacinths and 

 the Polyanthus Narcissi can be planted low down, almost on the turf drainage. 

 Tulips should form a stratum above these, planted in the angles of the larger bulbs ; 

 a higher formation can be composed of Crocuses, Scillas, Snowdrops, and Aconites. 

 These last should be about an inch beneath the surface of the soil, and that again 

 one inch beneath the level of the edges of the box : water freely, and finally cover 

 the whole with a coating of coal-ashes, forming a kind of sloping roof to throw off 

 the rain, and to serve as a protection from frost. As soon as the shoots begin 

 to penetrate the coal-ashes, they can be removed ; no rigour of weather will prevent 

 their giving forth the beautiful flowers looked for ; for (to use another stock phrase) 

 *' their well-being is less dependent upon the mysteries of the gardening art than 

 that of almost any other class of plants in cultivation." Mysteries of the gardening 

 art ! Alas for fat catalogues, is gardening involved in mysteries ? Well enough it 

 might be, where these are appreciated. 



I neither like moss nor cocoa-fibre as a covering for boxes planted in this 

 manner. They hold too much damp. I have tried both, and fall back upon the 

 friendly and simple coal-ashes. Plants, when used among bulbs — in a box, for 

 instance, where crowding cannot be avoided — are often injurious to the latter, 

 because of their retention of moisture beneath their foliage. There will be plenty 

 of foliage from the bulbs themselves to relieve the colour of the flowers, if foliage 

 be required for that purpose. 



Then for conservatory decoration, how easily are Tulips and the beautiful 

 varieties of Narcissus grown ! The former particularly, as they are the most showy 

 of the spring-flowering bulbs, and can be retained in bloom for a long time. A 



